601 #659 - "It should have been administered under AWAL."
Good point, the short quote you popped in seems to indicate that AWAL would/should 'stand in the shoes of the regulator', so to speak. Instrument 161/07 mentions "relevant aircraft operations", does this stretch to ensuring that the flight crew are qualified, competent, have a rule set and SOP to work to?. Like (for example) a fatigue score for commercial aero's, 12 loops a day is the limit. CASA most certainly would do that for an elevated risk operation which was available to 'the man off the street'...
..... If Hempel made a fatigue related error, pure and simple, I wonder that the spectre of pilot fatigue (particularly for older souls) was not examined. Harvey alludes to this, albeit obliquely. But for mine, it could just be a contributing factor. No doubt the ATSB covered it adequately in their stellar report....
A lay interpretation of 161 seems to indicate that the "Operation" rather than the "man" was under the administration of AWAL. That Hempel himself was not a paid up member seems moot; although the instrument is certainly slippery enough. It begs the question – just who was responsible for allowing the Hempel company to operate, as it did.
There are a couple of emails at the end of the CASA summary of show cause (Vol 2) which caught my eye, (the one which indicates 'mysterious' new witnesses for example). I left them aside as they seemed not to fit into that particular email daisy chain; although they certainly provoked a response from SC Bourke (QPS). Maybe it was just the offer of "qualified" divers that got SC Bourke salivating (or cranky).
Reference starts from page 72 (pdf counter) the email time sequence is all buggered up, so you need to wiggle things about a bit; but, AWAL were, at least peripherally involved. Perhaps this could explain why CASA was so frustrated and could only hammer away at the man's medical issues, rather than the company operational issues. It also may go some way in explaining the perception of 'top cover'.
One thing is clear, I don't know enough about the AWAL charter; yet.....
